Quote:noun BAN-shee
Definition
: a female spirit in Gaelic folklore whose appearance or wailing warns a family that one of them will soon die
Did You Know?
In Irish folklore, a bean sídhe (literally "woman of fairyland") was not a welcome guest. When she was seen combing her hair or heard wailing beneath a window, it was considered a sign that a family member was about to die. English speakers modified the mournful fairy's Irish name into the modern word banshee—a term we now most often use to evoke her woeful or terrible or earsplitting cry, as in "to scream like a banshee," or attributively, as in "a banshee wail."
Merriam Webster Word of the Day -- Banshee
